The Games That Changed Baseball

<p> The national pastime's rich history and vast cache of statistics have provided fans and researchers a gold mine of narrative and data since the late 19th century. Many books have been written about Major League Baseball's most famous games. This one takes a different approach focusing on MLB's most historically significant games.</p><p> Some will be familiar to baseball scholars such as the October afternoon in 1961 when Roger Maris eclipsed Babe Ruth's single-season home run record or the compelling sixth game of the 1975 World Series. Other fascinating games are less well known: the day at the Polo Grounds in 1921 when a fan named Reuben Berman filed a lawsuit against the New York Giants winning fans the right to keep balls hit into the stands; the first televised broadcast of an MLB game in 1939; opening night of the Houston Astrodome in 1965 when spectators no longer had to be taken <I>out</I> to the ballgame; or the spectator-less April 2015 Orioles-White Sox game played in an empty stadium in the wake of the Baltimore riots. Each game is listed in chronological order with detailed historical background and a box score.</p>